Yes, there’s been a name change (well, err…)

February 20, 2010

Same URL, same blog, same author … but yes, a different name.   Of course, i’m waffling on it.  What should I name it?

Thank you, dear readers for your suggestions, and I am open to hearing more of them.    I have not completely settled on “Adoption Critique” for the name of this blog.  There are many other options:

… Adoption Voice?
… Adoption Trauma Survivor?
… Adoption Words?
… Adoption Critic?
… ?

So, what do you think?  Do you like “Adoption Critique”?  Is something else better?

I thought it was better than “Adoption Analysis” (boring?)  :)

So, your feedback is always  invited.

~~~~

….   Ten years ago today, our reunion.  We hugged for the very first time.  I got to touch him for the first time.  That right, the right that all other mothers take for granted, the right to hold and hug their babies, had been stripped from me — stolen from me — the moment he was born.

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Adoption “Choice” – A Response to a Mother

February 9, 2010

I recently responded on another blog to a mother (I consider her to be a mother, but she calls herself  a “birthmother“  i.e. a non-mother) who expressed that the loss of her two children to adoption had brought guilt, grief and self hatred to her — and yet she was convinced it was her choice and she was not “bitter*” about adoption.

As she spoke about pain, guilt, grief, self hatred and tears — my heart went out to her, as those are the same words of many mothers who were forced to surrender against their will, yet who considered it to be a “choice” that they willingly and happily made.

My sincere belief is that the concept of “choice” is one that a mother internalizes from being given repeated social messages about adoption, social attitudes, and the refusal of Western culture to even consider the possibility of coerced surrender.   Why? Because the dominant discourse about adoption is controlled by the adoption industry and it’s customers.  And, the repeated message in this discourse as unquestioningly accepted by society is that  women choose to give away unwanted babies, right?   Half-right.  Adoption WAS created to find new homes for orphans and unwanted children.  However, exceedingly rarely were our children even unwanted,  As we held them in our arms, or saw them after their birth, and fell in love with them — how many of us actually emphatically phoned up the adoption agency weeks after birth to demand “Take away this bastard — I feel nothing for her!  I have no interest in keeping her!”  You see, that is the situation that adoption is actually intended for.

The mother-child bond and relationship is so important that there are recognized rights that all mothers inherently possess, for the sole reason that we are human beings. One of these is the right to all the support you need in order to raise your child without fear of an “unstable life’ (i.e. missing support system). Check out Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Coercion takes many forms: It can take the form of agencies, family members, clergy, hospital staff, etc. pressuring the mother to surrender her baby or telling her that adoption is a fantastic option (making her feel she would be selfish for wanting to keep her baby). It can take the form of carefully-researched methods being applied to mothers to increase the chance they will surrender. It can also be systemic financial coercion when governments withhold vital financial support from mothers which leave them in fear of dire poverty with no guaranteed income, housing, etc. The latter is, yes, intentional, and according to adoption researcher Reuben Pannor is the leading cause of surrender. It is also preventable. Why does Australia have a mere handful of surrenders each year while the U.S. has tens of thousands? Because Australia protects mothers against ALL these types of coercion.

There is a checklist of common coercion methods here, but human rights violations including poverty also count as coercion. So does open adoption practices where mothers meet or “bond with” adopters prior to birth or prior to signing surrender documents. That has a huge risk of emotional coercion. And again, a coerced surrender is not a “choice’ at all.  The choice of adoption not only must involve (1) informed consent (obtainable only once the mother has taken home her baby and found out first-hand what she will be sacrificing and with having been given full disclosure regarding the psychological risks (unresolved grief and loss, depression, PTSD, secondary infertility, future relatioship and parenting difficulties) but (2)  as it is such an important decision also must be freedom of any form of coercion as this nullified freedom of choice.

Ignoring the fact that abortion and adoption are NOT related events in the slightest, the fact that this mother states regarding surrender that she “did not want to do it” and yet considers it to be a “choice,” is a huge contradiction.  Only in adoption is the phrase “forced to choose” considered logical.

Let’s follow the logic: You wanted to keep your baby, you did not want to surrender:  So what made you do it?  Something made you surrender against you will. That “something” is called coercion.  A coerced “choice” is not a choice at all, the coercion by the fact of existing has eliminated all freedom of choice. So, in essence, you did not “choose” to surrender your babies.

That’s why i’m saying that mothers who love their babies don’t “choose” to surrender them. Adoption was created in 1851 as a disposal mechanism for unloved and unwanted children, not for children were were loved and wanted. It’s the rise of the adoption industry, convincing mothers to surrender babies, that has made it into such.

You had the right to keep your baby. Your babies had the right to the support they needed in order to keep YOU.

~~~

Post-script:  I have also realized that although the grief from the loss of my son has been crippling, I have never felt guilt, regret, anger at myself, or self-hatred from it. I think that this freedom has come with knowing that it was not my ‘decision’ as I had never been given a choice.  A coerced ‘choice’ is not a choice at all. No decision can be made when there is only one viable option given.  I wish that every women who has unwillingly surrendered a child they loved to adoption could also be free from these emotions.

~ ~~

* I am not “bitter.”  Never have been.  “Bitter” is a derogatory term used by society to describe someone they considered to be unjustifiably angry at themselves or  because they did or did not do something.  On so many levels this is just totally unapplicable to how many natural mothers feel:  justifiably angry at the adoption industry for taking their babies via coercive adoption practices and working to end unnecessary adoptions and coercive adoption practices.  If it were not for righteous anger at injustice, civil rights, human rights, campaigns against genocide, and the vote for women would not exist.

~~

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International Adoption: Bought a Chinese Baby Lately?

January 28, 2010

If you have recently adopted from China, here is further proof that children are being trafficked expressly for the purposes of international adoption:

” Five other orphanages opened nearby and were making the same request. By 2000, however, the supply of babies was drying up …

“Rising incomes, changing attitudes toward girls and weaker enforcement of the one-child policy had combined to stem the widespread dumping of baby girls. Besides, pregnant women who were insistent on a boy would determine the gender with ultrasound (illegal, but common just the same) and abort female fetuses …

“But foreign adoptions were in full swing, with more than 5,000 babies heading to the United States in 2000 alone …

“Instead of turning over extra babies to the orphanages in Guangdong, Liang preferred to sell them to traffickers who would pay more to take them to Hunan or adjacent Jianxi province, which also supplied many of the babies adopted in the United States. The Duans say that in addition to the 85 babies she provided them, Liang sold more than 1,000 to orphanages …

“The orphanages disguised the origins of the babies, the Duans said. … “They would fabricate the information. They would say that the baby was found at the Sunday market, near the bridge, on the street. Very few of the stories they put in the babies’ files were true. Only the director of the orphanage knew the babies were really from Guangdong,” Duan’s father said …

“The Chinese government acknowledges that each year 30,000 to 60,000 children go missing, most of them abducted.

“The Los Angeles Times reported in September that local family planning officials in Guizhou and Hunan provinces sometimes confiscated babies from families that had violated the one-child policy and then collected money by selling the children for foreign adoption. “

As they say, “follow the money.”   Where there is a market demand, little regulation, and the ability to exploit a “source of product” (in this case, mothers who have just given birth),  is it any wonder that this type of unethical activity occurs?

Not only that, but that Western society denies it turns a blind eye to it the same way it did when unwed mothers were herded into maternity facilities to give birth and be stripped of their babies?   Tied down and drugged while their babies were taken away from them?

A culture which condoned this systemic abduction of White children in Canada and the U.S., of course is going to turn a blind eye to Asian children overseas.  North Americans should be ashamed of themselves.

There are other articles as well about the trade in Chinese babies.  This is not an isolated incident. Such as “Chinese crackdown nets thousands of ‘stolen’ children – As many as 60,000 children missing each year” This article states that “The girls are often sold … to agencies that arrange foreign adoptions.”  But this is not the only story — there are also these articles:

Yet adoption agencies across Canada market these babies very legally, as the Canadian government turns a blind eye to human trafficking for adoption purposes.  But I guess, as they say, “The customer is always right” — or at least has the most power in the whole equation.  And the collective financial and political power that backs the adoption industry — an industry fuelled by intense and well-monied market demand for babies and marketed as “a noble deed” — is something that it looks like governments are willing to acquiesce to.

~~

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Human Rights, Motherhood, Reproductive Exploitation … and Adoption

January 13, 2010

This is a post about human rights.   Rights that we all enjoy because, well, we are human beings and not tadpoles, buttercups, or granite slabs.  We are born human, and in a special position in the world even if we share most of our DNA with a host of other similar creatures.

Humans have the ability to commit both magnificent acts of good and terrible acts of evil.  In the mid-20th century, the world was recovering from a horrific world war and related events of genocide and destruction, which had ripped apart families and left much death and suffering in their wake.

A coalition of “civilized” nations swore that this evil should never happen again, and worked to create what became the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,  adopted and proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations ion December 10, 1948.

Included in the Universal Declaration are rights that are belong inherently to all living human beings.  They include rights to dignity and equality, the right to be free from slavery, and the right to equal protection of the law.  Also included in the Universal Declaration are rights  that protect even the most vulnerable of our citizens  from systemic cruelty and exploitation.  Rights that our governments try to conveniently forget.

A mother and her child together are one of the  most precious and yet are often the most vulnerable families in any society.  Vulnerable, that is, because in some cultures, they are rendered without protection from external forces that work to separate them. In many patriarchal nations, a mother is often only certain that she will be able to keep her baby if:  (1) she is married and thus financially/socially protected by a man, or (2) she has sufficient status  in the employment market such that she can independently support her baby by herself.

Men and women are equal, but due to biology they are very different, an example being when two people of the opposite sex make love.  The man can walk away from his responsibility for any resulting child — he may not even know he is a father.  The woman cannot walk away.  She must deal with the consequences in a directly personal way.  During her pregnancy,  social sanctions limit not only her options, but stigmatize her into solutions that society either provides or withholds from her.  A baby is a part of her body for nine months, and that experience is one she can never walk away from.

To be a woman means the inherent capability (or implied capacity) to create and give birth to a child.

“Making the decision to have a child – it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart walking around outside your body.” – Elizabeth Stone

Human rights factor into the experience of every woman who becomes pregnant.   Firstly, human rights are universal, guaranteed to all human beings.  Article 2 of the Universal Declaration states:

“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”

Article 16 states:

“The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.” A mother and her child together is a family. There can be no doubt, and no argument, about this. They thus have the right to protection by society and the state.

But perhaps most explicit is Article 25, which states:

“(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. 2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.”

This explicitly provides every family — every mother and her child — with the support and means required to keep them together, as a basic human right.   It also means that women have the right to social protection, the right to keep their children, without having to be the “social property” of a man  (did you know that until very recently, in many areas the birth certificates of the children of unmarried mothers were stamped “Illegitimate”?).   It means that marriage is not required to “legitimize” a woman fulfilling the natural function of her body, a natural function of being a woman:  giving birth to her child.  Marriage or at least a long-term parental commitment from both partners is indeed the ideal situation, but for many mothers it is just not feasible or possible.

This Declaration agreed to in 1948 protects all mothers and their children.  It provides mothers with rights such that no mother need be forced by poverty, coercion, or social pressure to surrender her baby for adoption. Every mother has the right to protection and social support for herself and her child as a family unit such that horrific trauma of surrender, the coerced separation from her infant,  is not inflicted upon her.

“Almost everyone believes that on some level, [mothers] made a choice to give their babies away. Here, I argue that adoption is rarely about mothers’ choices; it is, instead, about the abject choicelessness of some resourceless women.” (Solinger, 2001).

It is clear that if the basic human rights of ALL mothers were respected, protected, and codified into the laws of each nation, that there would be far fewer unnecessary adoptions.  Fewer families would be destroyed, fewer mothers would be forced to surrender their beloved infants, and the world would be a far more ethical and safe place for mothers who are giving birth — mothers left vulnerable to the  adoption industry because their human rights have been violated.

* * *

References:

  • “Elizabeth Stone Quotes” at http://thinkexist.com/quotes/elizabeth_stone
  • Solinger, R. (2001). Beggars and choosers – How the politics of choice shapes adoption, abortion, and welfare in the United States. New York: Hill & Wang.

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“Do natural mothers change their stories?”

December 24, 2009

This question was asked on “Yahoo Answers” a number of months ago:

“Do a lot of people believe that women give their children up for adoption and then in the future “change” their version of the facts/or their way of thinking, to reflect that their child was stolen or they were viciously coerced rather than truly relinquished due to whatever circumstances there may have been?”

Various people on Yahoo Answers had been posting comments calling into question the integrity of natural mothers (“birthmothers”) who had recounted their stories of having lost children to adoption against their will, of feeling they had no choice but to surrender.  This person asked whether mothers had actually changed their stories.

I found this question to be interesting for several reasons, as it showed how “general society” might still be ignorant of what happens when a mother loses a child to adoption, the trauma that occurs, or that she may be in a far different position later in life as far as knowledge of the processes of the adoption industry.  (Also interesting was that this question was asked in the first place: Perhaps the questioner was trying to wrap his/her mind around the very concept that coerced surrender could exist?).

Firstly, this question assumes that women don’t block out the memories of what happened to them — a common symptom of PTSD: you dissociate as the trauma is too difficult to face. I know women who can’t even remember their child’s birth date or signing papers, until much later, at which point the memories come flooding back, often in the form of flashbacks and nightmares. It is often with reunion or beginning their search that moms begin to remember details of what happened.

PTSD Criterion C:  Avoidance/Numbing
3. Inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma

Secondly, a young or otherwise vulnerable mother may be forced to surrender by various means, and it is only when she is much older — when she has far more information on what her rights were at the time — that she realizes that those rights were violated. Rights that the adoption industry never informed her that she had rights.

“The first thing the unmarried mother is likely to lose is her right to make important decisions. The agency or community tells her what she must do if she is to receive the services she needs . . . In most instances the plan for the baby is pre-determined. Often these matters are decided without her being able to state her own preferences.” Helping Unmarried Mothers, by Rose Bernstein, copyright 1971*

Or the natural mother realizes only much later that she was coerced, not realizing it at the time, when she finds out that carefully-researched methods were used on her that would increase the likelihood she would sign those papers. An expectant mother, labouring mother, or new mother may not realize at the time that various practices were being done to her in order to ensure she would surrender her baby. Thousands if not millions of dollars in federal money in the U.S. and Canada has gone into studies researching how to get more mothers to surrender. These adoption studies do not hide their purpose. Even open adoption was designed for this purpose, to get more babies to market.

Why was this done? In part, because of the post-WWII consumer demand for healthy white infants:

“… the tendency growing out of the demand for babies is to regard unmarried mothers as breeding machines…(by people intent) upon securing babies for quick adoptions.” – Leontine Young, “Is Money Our Trouble?” (paper presented at the National Conference of Social Workers, Cleveland, 1953*)

“For every healthy newborn available, there are now almost forty potential parents searching.” – (“Love for Sale” by Nelson Handel, Adoptive Families Magazine, 2000).

Adoption is now North America’s largest multi-billion dollar unregulated industry. Agencies, lawyers, and facilitators exist as “baby brokers,” practicing adoption as a commercial transaction where people pay tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for an unrelated baby (In many other nations, this is known as human trafficking).

When I found the book “Death by Adoption” back in 1982, I discovered other socio-political reasons for what had been done to me, and why adoption was an issue of discrimination against women:

“Adoption is a violent act, a political act of aggression towards a woman who has supposedly offended the sexual mores by committing the unforgivable act of not suppressing her sexuality, and therefore not keeping it for trading purposes through traditional marriage. The crime is a grave one, for she threatens the very fabric of our society. The penalty is severe. She is stripped of her child by a variety of subtle and not so subtle manoeuvres and then brutally abandoned.” – Joss Shawyer, Death by Adoption, Cicada Press (1979)

For example: My baby was taken right at birth for adoption, by hospital staff. I had never told them that I wanted to surrender my baby. I wanted to keep my baby (but no-one ever asked me about this or gave me this as an option).  They put me in a room far from the maternity ward to keep us separated, and kept me drugged for days.   I was finally allowed to see him for about 5 minutes, but bulldog nurses kept a hawk-like watch on me to ensure I could not even pick him up.  I was not welcome in that nursery.   I found out later from my son that they even transfered him over to another hospital to keep him from me! Then I learned two decades later, by reading articles in nursing journals and the government inquiry testimony of hospital administrators — and through hearing the stories of dozens of other natural mothers across Canada — that taking babies at birth was routine, and done specifically to prevent a mother from keeping her baby, to prevent all contact in the intent that she would be prevented from “bonding with” her baby, to prevent her from “changing her mind (i.e. preventing her from making ANY real decision about adoption, as that can be made only post-recovery.) At age 17, I had no idea that this was why my baby was taken. I also did not know that it violated my parental rights, discriminated on the basis of marital status (in treating me different from married mothers), and constituted abduction under the Criminal Code of Canada:

“(281) Abduction of Person Under Fourteen – Every one who, not being the parent … unlawfully takes, entices away, conceals, detains, receives or harbours that person with intent to deprive a parent … of the possession of that person is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years.”

A mother may also “come out of the fog” when she discovers that other mothers “not on the adoption treadmill’ were treated differently. An example is when an agency/lawyer or parents tell(s) you: “You are 17. There is no way you can to go college and get a job with a baby — you’ll be in poverty on welfare for the rest of your life.  Besides, children raised by single mothers turn into criminals and if you don’t sign he’ll sit in foster care until you finally do!” You are not told about welfare and your parents are firm that you are NOT allowed to bring your baby home (after all, they already shut you away in (or you were shamed into “turning yourself in” to) a maternity facility, wage home, etc. so that relatives and neighbours would never find out).

A mother won’t realize at the time that this is coercion as she whole-heartedly believes the lies that the adoption worker told her — and no-one tells her differently. Then years later you meet someone your age who DID keep her baby, went to college (where there was an on-campus daycare), and works at a better or equal job, and her baby didn’t starve — you realize that at age 17 you were lied to and surrendered your baby because you believed this lie. Nevermind finding out that the paycheque of the person or agency who told you this depending on them “making enough sales”! This equates to legal conflict of interest.

For me, another wake-up call came when I met my friend Pashta back in 1990. She was a few years older than me, but also had her first baby when she was 17, also in Canada. I asked her how it could be that the hospital allowed her to keep her baby and did not take her baby at birth. Her answer: The difference was that she was married!

Does this mean I “changed my story”?  No, not at all. But it means I did not realize at age 16 and 17 how coercion worked. All I knew at the time I lost my baby was that I wanted to keep my baby and that I had no choice but to sign those papers in a state of numbness and shock. At age 17 I thought it was “normal” and legal and that somehow I did not deserve or have a right to my baby. Only years later did I find out how it was done such that I had no chance or choice, why it was done, and that it had been done to thousands of other women across Canada.

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Adoption separation: A tragic end for one natural family

November 11, 2009

I have a friend, Rowena, who is a natural mother who lost her son to adoption.

Rowena was only 17 when she gave birth to her son Blaise, and in Grace Hospital in Calgary, they only allowed her to see him sparingly for few days after his birth, and then one day the nurses took him away and refused to let her see him ever again. That was the power that hospitals had over us unwed mothers. The professionals around us, often government social workers, we trusted as no-one else showed any care for us. Little did we know of our rights to our babies – the same as the rights of any older or married mother – or that the hospitals’ actions were illegal. Beaten down emotionally and psychologically, and often cast away into exile by our parents and society, we did not know we had any rights at all.

So, in 1967, Rowena’s son was born. And the government social worker that came with the surrender papers made her believe that her only option was to sign, that an unwed mother could not be a mother at all. The growing list of “waiting parents” was more important to the worker than the emotional trauma she was doing by dismembering this one young family. Rowena wanted to keep her baby, and he was taken from her.

Because of the traumatic loss of her son, Rowena never had another child. She yearned for him for what seemed like unending years, thinking of him every single day, and doing what she could to deal with the PTSD and unrelenting grief.

As soon as Alberta set up an adoption reunion registry, Rowena signed up for it. Her name was on that registry for over twenty years as she waited to hopefully find Blaise again. All she had known was that he was supposedly adopted into a “good home” with a stay-at-home mother and a professional father.

Rowena began coming to our monthly Origins Canada support group meetings early this year, and we offered to help her find her son. Thanks to adoption records opening in Alberta (after a hard-fought campaign by people separated by adoption), she was able to apply for and obtain her son’s full adoptive name.

The search began in March 2009, and forty-two years after Rowena lost her son to adoption, he was found again!

The break came when we found Blaise’s adoptive family’s genealogy listed online, including an adoptive sister, “Alice.” We found her in the phonebook, and Rowena phoned her.

Yes, it was the right Alice. Yes, her adoptive brother was Rowena’s son. But, no, Rowena could not contact him as he was a drug-addicted homeless person living on the streets of a city far away. The sister promised to pass on the message to him, if he eventually got a contact number.

Eventually, when Blaise got a temporary cellphone, Rowena and Blaise were finally able to talk on the phone. He told her how his adoptive parents had divorced when he was young, and his adoptive mother was cold and distant. He had little contact with the adoptive father. No, Blaise had not graduated from high school. Yes, he was doing hard drugs, and when Rowena asked what drugs he used, he told her, “Anything I can get my hands on.” Rowena was shocked that her beloved son had been treated this way and was in this state, as she had been forced to surrender him by a system that had told her that these parents were fit and deserved her son more than she did.

Rowena and Blaise talked on the phone three times, when he was able to temporarily get a phone. By the second call, he was calling her “Mom,” and hoping to travel out to the coast to visit her and even live with her. He wanted to start a new life. Rowena offered to send him the bus fare for him to come out.

Rowena sent letters and photographs to Blaise through Alice. Unfortunately, Alice and her family opened up Rowena’s mail to Blaise, which hurt Rowena a lot.

In her third and tragically last phone call with Blaise, Rowena was happy to find that he had finally received the photographs and letters.

In early October, a phone call came from Alice. Blaise was in hospital with a serious heart infection, and Alice said that if Rowena wanted to see Blaise she had better hurry out to Edmonton fast. Alice offered to put up Rowena at her place. Rowena bought the tickets to travel the 1300 km trip and packed her bags, but 20 minutes before she left the house, the phone rang. It was Alice, who told Rowena in an angry voice that she “couldn’t have Rowena staying there” and that she would have to stay elsewhere.

Rowena phoned the hospital to find out how her son was doing. The staff there told her that they were not allowed to release any information, other than to people on the visitors list, and she was not on it. The adoptive father was in charge of the list. Even if Rowena had travelled, she would not have been allowed to see her son.

Last week, the final phone call came. Blaise’s adoptive father told Rowena that her son had passed away. When she asked, he stated firmly that, NO, she was not permitted to come to the funeral, as “They had enough people already.”

Thanks to adoption, Rowena never saw her son nor held him in her arms since his birth 42 years ago. Thanks to adoption, she will never have that chance. The adoptive parents had the right to ensure she would never be able to be there in his final days. Rowena is devastated. The hope of reunion with her son, the hope that sustained her for 42 years, has ended.

I write this post in dedication of the love that Rowena and Blaise had for each other, as mother and son. She never forgot her son. I hope that I am not the only one who sees the tragedy here.

If you are a mother considering the surrender of your newborn infant, please realize that you are losing the right to ever see your beloved child again. Even open adoptions may close at any time (they are not legally enforceable), and not only will you not have the right to see your child, but not even the right to know about his or her welfare. That is a right only the adoptive parents have, and even if your child is an adult — as next-of-kin — they have the right to deny all information or contact to others in case of a medical emergency. Adoption loss is a tragedy in so many ways. Please consider if you can live with this loss as well.

In Memory of Blaise
1967-2009
Loved and missed by your natural mother, Rowena,
even since you were born

This is a true  story about a natural mother and her son, and how forced adoption separation led to a heartbreaking tragedy.  Every time a mother and child are forced apart for adoption purposes, it is a tragedy; but for Rowena, the hope of seeing her son again was forever lost.

See Rowena’s article “Reunion Attempt“

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Protected: “Sorry, Mrs. Smith” — Looking Beyond The Story

October 3, 2009

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Protected: “Sorry, Mrs. Smith, your baby has to be adopted”

September 23, 2009

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Adoption Coercion in Black and White

September 16, 2009

The statistics are in: Few natural mothers (“birthmothers”) who “voluntarily” surrendered a baby to adoption over the last 50 years did so (or are doing so) as an act of free will. Very few were allowed to recover first from birth, unpressured by social workers, lawyers, family members, or people hoping to adopt. Few were provided with all the resources they required in order to keep their babies (unless, as Solinger (2000) pointed out, they were African American and their babies were not in demand on the adoption market). Few in “open adoptions” are not pushed into “pre-birth matching” which automatically puts a mother into a position where emotional coercion may freely occur, where she is unprotected from it.

I feel that coercion really is black and white: The decision whether or not to surrender is so monumental and life-changing, and the bond between mother and child so important, that the dynamics that go into the separation of mother and child must be carefully examined.

“Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.” — Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Given the immense financial and social power of the adoption industry and the many years and thousands of dollars that have been expended on finding out ways to get more mothers to surrender their babies — given the power differential between the industry and a vulnerable (e.g., young, poor, unsupported, or unmarried) mother — the position must be taken that a mother’s decision regarding the surrender of her child must be freely made, fully-informed, and non-coerced in order to be a decision or “choice” at all. It is black and white. There are no grey areas.

Analysts of sexualized violence against women and children now agree that coerced sexual intercourse is not sex, it is rape. Unless there is a clear “yes,” ethically it is “no.” “Anything other than Yes means No” is the new phrase that defines rape and other types of sexualized violence. There is a new recognition of coerced sex as being violence, when a woman or child is pressured into saying “yes” to intercourse or a sexual act when she does not want to. Forced or coerced sex is always rape.

“An emerging factor from this research was the striking similarity of feelings associated with sexual abuse and relinquishment.” – Logan (1996), p. 619.

Just as with the trauma that is known to result from forced sexualized violence, and the recognition that this crime is has major consequences, in the same way the mother-child bond is also of equal importance. Just as a woman’s body is to be protected from violation, the relationship between a mother and her newborn is sacred and needs to be considered equally important and protected from violation.

Given the importance of her relationship with her child and the tremendous potential lifelong consequences of separation for both mother and child, a true “decision” or “choice” only exists when a mother (1) is free of any emotional, psychological, social or financial coercion, (2) has been provided with all the facts regarding the emotional and psychological consequences of surrender, (3) has been given enough time to recover from the birth to make an informed decision, and (4) when her human rights have not been violated.

Just as rape is rape and “anything other than YES means NO,” a mother who “make an adoption plan” resigned to the idea that no other viable options exist, or whose ability to make that decision post-birth and post-recovery has been compromised or negated, is not making a decision.

When others have orchestrated and influenced the act of separation to increase the chance or ensure that she surrenders her baby, coercion has occurred. Particularly if these others have a vested interest in seeing this mother surrender:

  • They may be adoption agency or maternity staff whose agencies or organizations depend on the revenue from brokering babies in order to remain open, whose paycheques depend on a certain number of surrenders per year. No surrenders = agency bankruptcy. (This is the main reason why open adoption was developed.)
  • They may be people eagerly hoping to adopt her baby.
  • They may be priests or nuns who feel that they are carrying out the will of God in ensure that an infant “born in sin” is “redeemed” by being adopted into a “good Christian family.”
  • They may be the mother’s own parents, who want the “shame” of a “bastard grandchild” to be removed from the family ASAP (“What would the neighbours think?!”).
  • They may even be “birthmothers” themselves, recently surrendered, who seek emotional justification of their loss by convincing other mothers to surrender their babies.

Coercion includes the emotional coercion that comes with having potential adopters involved in a mother’s life during pregnancy or birth. She is left with no way to make that choice without their presence, their affluence, their desire, their childlessness, their need, influencing her. A freely-made decision, or choice, in this situation is thus impossible.

“Almost everyone believes that on some level, [mothers] made a choice to give their babies away. Here, I argue that adoption is rarely about mothers’ choices; it is, instead, about the abject choicelessness of some resourceless women.” (Solinger, 2001, pp. 55‑56)

Coercion comes in many many forms. But what is definitive is that once a mother’s decision whether or not to surrender has been affected by coercion, it is no longer a freely-made choice. There is thus no decision. We can see how many years of adoption industry research on how to get more mothers to surrender and acceptance of this pressure, has ensured that those natural mothers (“birth mothers”) who have actually “chosen adoption” are few and far between.

Whenever a mother surrenders her baby because it is “of last resort” and she feel she has no other choices, no other viable options, then there is no choice at all. It is not a “choice” if there is only one option, if a mother feels she has no right or no ability to say “No!,” has expressed that she wants to keep her baby but no-one is listening, or has been silenced.

No decision = no guilt = no self-blame. A mother can hold the truth in her heart: I was not responsible for what was done to me that resulted in me feeling I had no choice.

~ ~ ~

In contrast, what a non-coerced surrender look like? Picture this scenario:

A mother is pregnant and gives birth. Throughout her pregnancy and aftrwards, she has access to all the resources she requires in order to be a parent. Her child will not suffer and poverty will not be a stressor. She recovers from birth with her baby, breastfeeding that child, taking her baby home, caring for her child, receiving the support and love of her family. Weeks pass, and she has recovered from the birth. The mother finds she does not love or want her baby. She goes to a counsellor provided for free by a provincial government Ministry (such as the Ministry for Children and Family Development here in B.C.) or child welfare agency whose paycheque or funding does not rely on some PAP’s “adoption fees.” No money changes hands in exchange for a baby. The counsellor explains the risks of PTSD, unresolved grief and loss, major depression, anxiety disorders, relationship difficulties, parenting difficulties, and secondary infertility. The counsellor explains the emotional, social, legal and developmental difficulties faced by adoptees. A government-appointed lawyer, again whose income does not depend on the surrender, explains the legalities of adoption, especially that open adoptions are not enforceable and her baby’s birth records will be changed. The mother signs surrender papers but receive more counselling. She has a month in which she can revoke her consent. After that month, her baby is in the custody of the province. A government social worker, protecting the right of the child to his family and heritage, examines the possibility of kinship care. If this is not possible, the mother begins interviewing prospective adoptive parents presented to her by the social worker, eventually choosing which set will adopt her baby. Case closed.

Mothers are protected by the same system that is in place in Australia. No adoptive parents have influenced her decision with a “pre-birth match,” financial coercion has not played a role, and adoption is used for its true purpose: to find a home for an unloved and unwanted child.

References:

  • Gerow, D. (2002). Infant adoption is big business in America. Retrieved November 23, 2006 from http://www.originscanada.org/infant.pdf.
  • Logan, J. (1996). Birth mothers and their mental health: Uncharted territory. British Journal of Social Work, 26(5), 609-625.
  • Solinger, R. (2000). Wake up little Susie: Single pregnancy and race before Roe v. Wade. New York: Routledge.
  • Solinger, R. (2001). Beggars and choosers – How the politics of choice shapes adoption, abortion, and welfare in the United States. New York: Hill & Wang.

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Posted by Adoption Critic

Jaycee Dugard … a DIY adoption

September 7, 2009

Recently, the world recoiled in shock when a young woman named Jaycee Dugard, age 29, was rescued from a filthy back yard where she was held captive for 18 years, imprisoned by a convicted sex offender, and forced to bear two of his children.

When the story broke, all I could think (and feel) besides relief that Jaycee had been found, was: I know exactly how her mother feels. That crushing feeling of hopelessness, a soul-destroying grief that has no end and no resolution, a feeling of being entirely helpless when you cannot find your child — even to find out if they are alive or dead — and no-one can help you. Physically and emotionally, reading her story, I felt an a echo of the long years of living these emotions.

The world sympathized with her parents — even more when it was revealed that Jaycee had bonded with her abductors and had even worked for them. She was introduced by her abductor as “his daughter,” and he even stated that she was part of his family and that her story of abduction was even “heartwarming.”

“The abduction also destroyed Terry’s life. Carl said that every year after Jaycee was taken, she would stay away from work on the anniversary of the kidnapping and spend the day at home, in tears.”

Jaycee was kidnapped at age 11, before she could give any consent to leaving her family (much like an infant taken for adoption), and before she could speak out to anyone against it (ditto). No minor can make this type of decision.

Eighteen years … not much shorter than the 20 years I remained in limbo, not knowing where my son was, if he was alive or dead.

Not that I didn’t try finding him, as as Jaycee’s parents must have. I scoured major B.C. newspapers, searching for “birth” announcements that may have been placed by people adopting. I found an adoption reunion registry, which I applied to in hopes that the people who had adopted him would have a heart and conscience and also apply while he was still a minor — I could not imagine anyone would intentionally or even inadvertently be so heartless as to put me through that torture willingly. I placed “happy birthday” greetings in newspapers, hoping he or his adoptive family would see them and contact me. When he was about 9, I spent several hundred dollars on a retainer for a private investigator … who found nothing. I studied the faces of every male child I saw who would be of his age, throughout the years. He was never absent from my mind — not a day went past without him being in my thoughts. How could it be otherwise?

I am certain that Jaycee’s parents felt exactly the same way. Except they had police to help them … not that it helped much.

So, tell me … why is our loss considered any less — any less tragic, any less traumatic, any less involuntary — than the loss experienced by Jaycee’s parents? Why are we expected to shut up about it? Why are we written off as nothing more than an incubators? Why do people willingly and happily adopt the babies of women who have had just as much choice as Jaycee’s mother, Terry? I am certain that these same people would feel for Terry, and meanwhile tell me that I have no right to talk

Why is the pain considered to be any less?

“[Mr Garrido] told us up-front he works with his daughter.”

Jaycee Dugard was abducted, and then treated as both a sex slave and an adopted daughter by her abductors. Let’s call it what it is: A do-it-yourself adoption. And when there is no choice on the part of the mother, how is either situation anything less than abduction?

“(281) Abduction of Person Under Fourteen – Every one who, not being the parent … unlawfully takes, entices away, conceals, detains, receives or harbours that person with intent to deprive a parent … of the possession of that person is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years.” – Criminal Code of Canada

ETA: A person who had adopted made the comment on another blog, “Regardless, signing ‘sealed the deal’.” Well, in B.C., I have heard many stories first-hand of what was done to single mothers who refused to sign while “customers” waited. Their babies were put into foster homes, and government social workers then went to court to terminate the mother’s rights on grounds that her baby’s best interest was to be with a married, stable, 2-parent family. Also, 3 months of your baby in a foster home you cannot find, and your rights could be automatically terminated on grounds of “abandonment.” Signatures were moot, especially when given while one is medicated to the gills. If one level of coercion did not work, a stronger level was applied until it did.

Taking babies right at birth while the mother was medicated and tied down was abduction. This happened across Canada.

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Posted by Adoption Critic

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